I noticed that I really liked several of these displays, and not all of them just the ones you've identified as placing. One other thing I noticed was that repetition really does seem to kill the harmony of a display.

Thanks for an awesome post. I imagine there's a lot to digest for most of us and I'm going to have to come back to it again and again.

Beautiful stuff here, really showed a lot about how tokonoma is used to convey a scene, the best ones to me need no explanation, unless it's an explanation on the characters or the cultural significance. Ted Matson's in the first set was amazing and really captured, to me, a waterfall scene similar to ones I see here all the time when collecting in east coast mountains, except until you reach high north, most of the trees are deciduous.

I must say that I understand the level of emotion that the Japanese who saw your barbed wire felt. As someone who was brought up in the shadows of the holocaust with my family taking many trips while I was young to the museum in Maryland, I felt a cold chill run down my spine when I saw this. It reminded me of the exhibits there, and nightmares I used to have of another holocaust happening here. It used to scare the hell out of me so much. But then I saw the new life, springing up amidst the barbs, and new beauty fluttering around it, and it cooled my emotions. I knew then that beauty and life cannot be held in by barbed wire, but will always burst through! If I might venture a reason why this piece creates such a stir. I think it's just the shock of an element as strong as barbed wire married with a delicate vulnerable element like a butterfly/flowers in an environment that fosters interpretation of the elements before you, that makes that level of emotion evoke. If I might use the metaphor, it's a much softer version of seeing a snail slink near a bright, honed straight razor...